Second Hand Guitars Wanted

As you’ll know if you read my guitars for sale page, I sometimes sell quality used electric and acoustic guitars and basses.

I (much like everybody else) get the majority of my guitars off eBay and Gumtree, as well as buying from friends, band mates and acquaintances. Sadly, I don’t have a magical queue of people lining up to sell me fabulous guitars and bargain basement prices.

When I buy a guitar I have to be able to get it cheap enough to make a profit when I sell it. This may sound silly to the business minded among you, but to some people, offering a low amount for a guitar is tantamount to an insult. I don’t want to insult anybody.

Let’s say a guitar might fetch £500 on eBay, on a good day with a reasonably well written advert and decent pics. This is our base for this discussion. If I were to sell the guitar, after a full setup and clean – probably a Full Beans – and list it with a great description and excellent photos I might expect to get £550. And that’s MAYBE.

The problem here is that eBay take 10%! Yes, 10% all for themselves. So I buy the guitar, do some work on it, then sell it for £550 AND EBAY TAKE THAT £50 PROFIT STRAIGHT OFF ME.

So, how much would I want to give you for that guitar? Well, first i’ve got to cover the cost of the Full Beans setup (usually 3-5 hours of my time. Then I’ve got to show a little profit on top of that. I have to pay tax and National Insurance on the profit too which takes 20%. So the answer is usually somewhere south of £400.

Why Would I Let You Give Me £400 For a £500 Guitar?

Good question! But, it does happen in all walks of like and with lots of products, and as they say “The Markets Never Lie.”

You need the money really quickly

The guitar is in bad shape and needs work doing that you can’t afford

You like me and want to show your appreciation for me being a top dude

You want to part-ex for another guitar I’ve got

You can’t be arsed with all the morons on eBay, and the charges

These are just a few of the reasons why I make the best buyer for your used guitar. I’ll take it off your hands, cash, after just a short inspection and play test. If there are any problems with the guitar after that, or anything develops over time, you won’t hear from me. We won’t even fall out about it. In fact if it turns out to be a dog I’ll like you all the more for being crafty enough to get one over on me. 😉